Government has overstepped bounds
Regarding Deborah Blue's Oct. 16 letter, if only the debate were just about libraries, pools and parks, but it's not. It's about our idea of the federal government's basic job, as well as a misunderstanding of capitalism.
For the majority of our existence, Washington didn't play the daily safety net and righter of all wrongs. For example, it didn't see any responsibility in making sure people had safe sex or paying for any results of such elective behavior. In that sense, maybe there should have been a government program to settle the West. Nor did it concern itself with the odd sports scandal. By the way, exactly what state or federal laws were broken in the whole baseball steroid ruckus? Unfortunately, that wasn't one of the questions asked in the congressional hearings.
Deborah's letter is also a snapshot of how our collective psyche has come to see capitalism as inherently unfair and unequal, and government, especially at the federal level, as exactly opposite. But fair and equal are hardly objective concepts. Speaking of corporations specifically, it seems we see them as having the power of life and death itself, or at the very least, able to take our freedoms at will.
But the truth is, no corporation, crime syndicate, etc., can strip you of your liberties wholesale the way government can. If they could, they'd be the government. The bottom line is, both the private and public sectors are only as virtuous as the people involved.
The TEA Party movement is just a small reaction to a government that, for the last 96-odd years, has incrementally broken the restraints of the Constitution to become what it is today, a meddling controlling tyrant that thinks it can live our lives better than we can.
Robert Olejarz
Sidney
Greed is not only motive for drilling
In her Nov. 16 letter to the editor, Joyce Spector says greed motivates DEC regulators, Cornell geologists, and landowners for wanting to extract gas in New York.
The DEC is in the tank for industry, geologists are born to drill, and landowners are seduced by easy money. I don't know who gave Ms. Spector psychic powers to know the minds and hearts of the folks she attacked, but let me offer another viewpoint.
Scientists and engineers at the DEC have taken the best practices from 10 gas-producing states, examined them, and crafted regulations best suited to New York. Exceeding federal standards for safety, the regs are considered the toughest in the country.
As civil servants, these professionals' pensions are safe, no matter which way they came down on an issue. As for the industry prejudice of the DEC, the current leaders are Spitzer appointees, mainly recruited from the environmentalist camp.
Geologists study rocks and what's in and under them. Companies use that expertise to pull materials to the surface. Ultimately, those extracted materials are what enables us to turn on the lights, turn up the heat, and drive to Grandma's for Thanksgiving. As for selfish Cornell scientists, I assume they also have tenure and job security, which allow them to say what they really think.
Regarding landowner greed, I talked to a farmer in Clyde, with a gas well on his land. "Now I can continue to farm," he said, "and send my daughters to college." Sound like greed to you, Joyce?
Ms. Spector tells us "drilling will be the final nail in the coffin of our already ailing Catskill Mountains." I suggest that gas will be the pry bar that opens that coffin and resurrects our local economy.
Richard Downey
Otego
